Objective: In the context of the »Tübinger Adoleszenz-Rückfallstudie Deliquenz« (TARD), the present study systematically compares a psychiatric peer-reviewed collective of female adolescent delinquents with a collective of male delinquents matched by age and charges on: offence dynamics, psychosocial stress factors, psychiatric disorders and recidivistic delinquent behaviour. Besides various personal, familiar and social risk factors of recidivism should be identified.
Material and method: Interpretation and systematic analysis of forensic psychiatric reports and criminal records of 44 female and 44 male teenage offenders are matched by age and criminal charges.
Results: In females relational aspects played a significantly higher role. Females more often chose a familiar person as a victim and had a significantly higher rate of psychiatric disorders, particularly emotional unstable personality disorders, Borderline-type. Boys had a significantly higher recidivism rate and they had been more often previously convicted. The recidivist offenders had more police-records and a significantly higher rate of conduct and impulse control disorder. Regarding all other factors, there had not been any more important differences between the recidivist and non-recidivist offenders.
Discussion: Different offence dynamics and relationship problems of female and male teenagers should be thoroughly assessed in forensic psychiatric reports. This has consequences for the pedagogical and therapeutic work with female adolescents.